


Ventearyri

by LordTomyh



Series: The Ventrulai Saga [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Original Character(s), Original Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 12:20:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11185011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordTomyh/pseuds/LordTomyh
Summary: After an attack by a demon in a shower stall a young girl is brought into a secret order of the Ventearyri protecting the world from demon incursions. But something is wrong, more and more of the hellish creatures are passing through the divide, and they're getting stronger while the Ventearyri are getting weaker. Will the defenders of humanity prevail, or is something else coming?





	Ventearyri

**_The night is darkest before the dawn_ **

Thomas Fuller

* * *

 

With a shuddering hiss water burst from the nozzle, the young girl yanking her arm back from the freezing spray. Zenith winced in pain from the sudden movement, her muscles complaining across her body. With a tired sigh, she stepped back from the shower and looked to her side, her reflection staring back at her.

Standing just under 5’6 she was lithe lean in build with smooth fair skin, long raven black hair currently sticking to her back in a sweaty tangle, and clear ocean blue eyes. Right now she was a mess. Fresh from fencing training she longed for the shower to wash the afternoon of defeats and missteps away. Letting out another tired sigh Zenith stripped off her sweaty clothes and tested the water. Happy with the temperature she stepped in and ducked under the stream, feeling the warm water, loosening her tired muscles.

_Must feed_ .

Zenith opened her eyes and looked around. The door was closed, the other shower stalls empty and the room silent save for the stream of water. Zenith shrugged and reached for the shampoo; must be hearing things.

_Human flesh, tender and ripe_ .

Zenith jumped, almost slipping over, and turned around. She wasn’t hearing things, someone was in the shower room. But the voice sounded sick, too deep with a wet undertone.

“Who’s there?” Zenith asked. No one replied. She waited, listening., but again the only sound was the stream of water. Still, Zenith felt like she was being watched, her hair standing on edge. She reached for the taps to stop the water when someone grabbed her wrist from behind and dragged it behind her back, the other arm likewise being pinned to her back.

Zenith screamed until something was shoved down her throat. Zenith bit down, but her teeth went right through whatever it was like water. It, it was water. Zenith was tasting water, and she wasn’t breathing. She was drowning. Somehow the man was drowning her.

Zenith struggled in the man's grasp, but his grip was like iron, and it felt like she was fighting against a waterbed.

_Mine. Must feed_ .

Zenith began to panic. Her mind was racing yet growing fuzzy, her vision starting to darken. Weaker, losing feeling in her arms and legs while her chest burned.

_Must feas-_

The shower stall door exploded, something nicking the bottom of her nose as she began to gag, finding air again and swallowing it down without restraint. Something nicked on Zenith’s wrists and she collapsed to the floor, the burning in her chest lessening as feeling through her body and her vision returned.

She looked up, but the stall was filled with sticky warm fog, hiding everything pass her nose. While thankful Zenith questioned where the fog had come from, and where the bastard grabbed her was; he should be right next to her, why did it sound like there was nothing, not even the stream of water from the shower. Zenith’s heart lurched. Here she was, blind and naked in a shower stall with a stranger who had tried to drown her while talking about eating her. And she didn’t know where he was: she questioned how he had disappeared. Was he now outside the stall waiting for her? Had he left?

Somehow Zenith doubted either of those.

Slowly she rose to her feet, trying to cover herself even with the mist, and took a step towards the door, she hoped.

Something wet wrapped around her ankle, tripping her up. Zenith threw her hands out to catch herself, but something else caught her instead. Something soft and warm. It wasn’t a hand or an arm, it felt spongy, almost breezy. Like the mist itself was holding her up.

Suddenly she was pushed upright as the mist began to clear. Zenith blinked a few times from the sudden intensity and looked down. There was still some mist she found, floating above her body.

‘ _That’s not right_ ’. The mist was clinging to her body, hanging from her shoulders and reaching to her knees like a dress. She tried grabbing at it, but caught nothing or hit herself. She tried waving it off, but it parted around her hands and continued to cling to her body.

Somehow the mist was covering her like clothes.

“How the fu-”

Something rose up behind her, roaring like a wild animal. Zenith tried to turn around, a scream halfway out of her throat when the air, not the mist the very air around her, rushed out of the stall, cracking the wooden walls and carrying her out away from the beast.

Sliding across the shower room Zenith stopped herself crashing into the wall and spun around, the mist still clinging to her. The colour drained from her skin, her body going cold numb in shock and a primal fear.

Standing in the shower stall, it’s humped back pressed against the ceiling was something she could only describe as a monster. Its body was roughly humanoid, bipedal, two arms, two legs, only its skull-like head sat against its humped back, and it's hands ended in claws that looked like ice. Most terrifying of all was that its entire being was made up of dark murky water, all save the white skull head.

Zenith went to scream.

A hand covered her mouth, making her scream silently into it. The hand, thank God, was human and attached to a man in his late teens early 20’s.

“Getting people’s attention will not help, as unlike you most humans can’t see demons,” the man said removing his hand; despite not looking away from the stall she felt like he was watching her.

He was just taller than she was with a lean build, smooth fair skin and spiky brown hair. He wore black leather robes with a white stripe down the front and along the bottom, with a waist-long half-shoulder cape that covered his left arm. On his right shoulder was a gray pauldron with ten white bands running down his black sleeve. Zenith couldn't see his eyes as they were hidden behind a pair of reflective lens goggles.

“What? What do you mean unlike me they can’t see it?”

“Most humans don’t have the sight. It’s rare to find one who does.”

Zenith looked to the monster, still standing in the stall watching her.

“What is that thing?” she asked quietly.

“A low-level demon. Similar in intelligence to the caveman stereotype.”

“Why is it made of water,” she asked curiously; she felt that she should be more panicked than she was that she was talking with a stranger in a shower room about a supposedly invisible monster. Oh and that she was doing all of that with a magical mist covering her decency.

The young man chuckled. “Are you always this curious in a life and death situation?” he asked as he unclasped his shoulder cape and handed it to Zenith. She took the leather garment and wrapped it around herself, tieing off the end. As she did the mist covering her faded away, bringing red to her cheeks. The young man didn’t seem to notice, still standing with his back to her he took a step towards the demon, raising his hands at his sides.

“Ok, I need you to get out of here.”

“What about that thing?” Zenith asked shooting a nervous glance at the demon.

“I’ll take care of it. I need you to Oh shit!” the young man yelled as the demon roared and charged forward. Zenith jumped back and covered her mouth, stifling a scream. The young man charged the demon, swinging at it with a closed fist. However he didn’t go to punch it, rather he was slashing at it like he was holding a sword.

He was holding a sword. The surface smoky like a clouded crystal. Zenith blinked; where had that come from? The young man slashed the demon across the chest, its watery form wavering as droplets and goblets hit the stall wall and began to dissolve the wood.

The demon roared in pain. From its body burst several watery tendrils, wrapping around the young man's body. Zenith dropped her hands to cry out when the tendrils were blown away by a strong gust of air.

The young man swung his sword again, removing the tendrils and stabbing the demon in the chest. The demon roared, then its body expanded, inflating like a balloon before blowing up. Zenith covered her head, expecting to feel the stinging bite the demons acidic innards.

No such pain hit her, nor did she feel the sloppy wet wave. Lowering her arms she saw the shower stall destroyed, its walls bent outwards and melted, and the rest of the room bearing smaller patches of melted wood, tile, and concrete. Except for a ring of tiles around her and a square section of the wall behind her. Zenith turned around slowly, taking in all the damage to the room.

“How the hell?” she asked quietly as she looked to the undamaged section. Had something? No something had definitely protected her from the acidic water.

“Did you do-” Zenith asked turning around the young man.

He was gone.

Zenith looked around the room, but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Did, he…” He couldn’t have died, there’d be a body. Zenith looked to the door to the rest of the change rooms.

“He left?” I didn’t even get to thank him.” Zenith looked down at the leather half-shoulder cape; he didn’t even stick around to get it back.

“I didn’t even get his name.”

Laughter echoed from a few rooms across, snapping Zenith back to the damaged shower room and the destroyed stall. If she was caught in the room, wrapped in a strangers leather cape, she had no doubt she’d be questioned, and she had no answer that would sound and, at least according to the young man.

Zenith looked once more around the room, and rushed to the exit, really glad that she kept a spare set of clothes in her locker in the next room.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone to my second piece of original work on this site. It's a sort of prequel/spin-off to my Ventrulai story set a few years before hand. I know that both stories are so far only chapter one, but reading this doesn't spoil anything for the other.
> 
> Anyways, I hope you like this story. Like Ventrulai this has been cooking since I was in year 10 (2009) literature or since my anime style of writing. So I apologize for any cliches and tropes that crop up.
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading this and look forward to future chapters.
> 
> Lord Tomyh.


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